If you're looking for a cab ride to or from an airport, you can head over to a taxi stand, walk outside and see if you can hail one, or call a cab company to come and pick you up directly. If you're looking to save a little cash and you're in a location where there are other people also looking for a ride, you might be able to convince one of them to share the ride with you.

Alternatively, you can use CabMatch, a Web service and iPhone app that's designed to connect you with other people who are willing to share a cab and split the cost.

The service is a great idea, and overall cab sharing is a great way to cut down on the costs of cab fare, especially if you're traveling out of town and need to get from the airport to your hotel and don't want to rent a car. As with most services of this type though, it's only as good as the number of people using it and ride-sharing, which is this app's Achilles' heel.

CabMatch's iPhone app will be available on Friday the 17th, but we checked out a preview of the iPhone app early. The Web service is also up and running now, although most of the destination locations are hotel chains and hotels in Las Vegas. This is great if you're in Vegas for a major event or conference, but if you're traveling to any other given city or a regional airport, you're likely out of luck.

The app and the Web service both work by connecting active users who are looking to cab rides from the same origin point to the same or nearby destinations. Simply type in the airport code for the airport you're leaving and the destination city that you need to get to from the airport, or switch the origin and destination around if you need to get to the airport from another location.

You can use the drop-down menu to specify where in the city you're located, but the menu is populated almost entirely by hotel chains and specific hotels in Las Vegas, so if you're not in Vegas it may be of limited usefulness. At the same time, you can select items like "Local Mall" and "Subway Station," which may be applicable to your location. Once you have the locations filled in, select the date and time you'd like to find a cab, and enter any additional information you think is relevant.

Post your listing to the service, and other CabMatch users will be able to search and browse listings in their area. You'll have to sign up for an account at CabMatch to post and view other people's listings (completely free,) but if there are no other listings in your area, you're pretty much out of luck and will have to resort to calling a cab or waiting alone at a taxi stand.

If there are others in your area looking for a ride, you can send SMS chat with them through the service to work out the details, but more often than not you'll just find empty listings. This is where the service falls down a bit: as with any Web service or mobile app that's designed to connect people, it's only as good as the size of the user base. With something as large and widely distributed as cab rides, CabMatch will need to grow significantly to be useful. If it does, it could be a great resource for people to find and share cab rides.

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